Racism

[Gary Childress]

After decades of philosophical exploration and inquiries, it's very difficult for me to commit to one position on political-social-racial issues. I tend to empathize with both opposing sides of arguments. On top of this, Americanism has taken its toll on me personally. So I also tend to reduce everything down to Individualism. This is deeply problematic when it comes to large societal issues like race & ethnicity. Thus I'll make a larger point here that you might be missing: America is not Europe. The American Civil War destroyed state-societies in the sense of identifying with one's own State. This is opposite of what happens in Europe. Europeans are deeply ingrained, entrenched, and committed to their individual countries: Spain, Albania, Slovenia, Estonia, Ireland, Etc. Thus the "European" mentality is socialistic in the sense of being committed to one's Ethnic society. Americans are not so.

One thing I find interesting here is the reference to the Civil War which, among the Southerners, is described as a *war of Northern aggression*. So what has interested me is what some historians say about the Civil War as the *defining* social, cultural and political struggle. What this means is that our modern political struggles tend to prove themselves as being *octaves* of or reflections of the former defining struggles. These come up time and again and follow a basic pattern. The North invaded and occupied the South and in this sense imposed its will on a section of the nation. What section was that? Essentially original America. So at least in a sense the *War of Northern Aggression* was a war against the original identity of America. The *Northern attitude* can then potentially be described as extremely intolerant. It condemns the views and ideas of its chosen enemies as being allied with *evil* and *wrongness*. This attitude then becomes a sort of constellation in the personality.

I fully agree that philosophical and historical analysis, always from a distance, is a more sensible intellectual position than that of the activist-partisan. However, within the general intellectual culture of today one must recognize that to be *right with God* one must adopt and confess very specific views that we describe as "politically correct". These view are enforced through the use of moral-emotional tools. If you have views and ideas that deviate from the standardized politically correct, those among our modern *thought-police* sniff these out, and immediately they assign labels: racist, sexist, misogynist, but these all flow, inevitably, into the ur-descriptive term of Nazi or Fascist.

The function of these terms is not hard to discern especially, and for example, on a forum like this one. Their function is to stop and inhibit any expression or exchange of ideas that are felt to be non-politically correct. Hence the term crimethink and wrongthink -- and a reference to a cadre of thought-police who are expert *sniffers* and who are aligned with goodness -- is not so far-fetched.

In my own view, and here I comment on an aspect of what you write ["thus the "European" mentality is socialistic in the sense of being committed to one's Ethnic society. Americans are not so"] my own view is that the former nationalistic glue that the conquering Northern power did successfully establish as 'Americanism" is now coming undone. The socially binding glue, or the ideological glue, that which holds a people together through different levels of *identification*, no longer holds. One has to look at and understand then all that tends to act as an *acid* and a dissolving agent.

A complex undertaking indeed.

Similarly, or relatedly, if a natural sense of *identification* and social and cultural solidarity of a national sort begins to come undone, it does seem to produce the need for the State to intervene and, more or less, enforce unity. How does this come about? Through the intervention of a State-police apparatus. Unity must be maintained, even if it is a false-unity and is no longer actually felt, through forced and even military intervention. I refer to military in the widest sense: federal police, intelligence agencies, corporate boards, PR and propaganda -- all must work together to stop the *glue* from unbinding. Curiously then, the 'glue of enforcement', at least seen from one angle, is a sort of applied Marxianism, and the present régime takes up those banners.

And this is why we are all witnessing a neck-breaking acceleration and intensification in the use of rhetorical terms to describe the actions of an intervening Federal state apparatus into the political affairs of the nation. The language of the Republican Right is now mirroring, almost verbatim, the sort of rhetorical terms used just a few decades back by the political Left! The State apparatus is now turned against the former *Republican-Conservative* block when, again just a short time back, it was the Republican-Conservative block that was said to have control of the State. Now it is the hard-core Republican, with his outmoded identifications, who is being hounded by a neo-moralist thought-police, but it has also been extended to actual police actions.

But what amazes me, and here I refer to this forum which, in my opinion, is peopled predominantly by extreme ideologues and anti-intellectuals, is the degree that the real outlines of political warfare are simply not seen. They are not registered at all. The idiots who come to do battle do not even have the proper tools for that battle. They simply do not understand what is going on and they don't want to.

So then the interesting thing is to apply these labels to, say, Flash, Sculptor and also to a degree to Veggie. They won't think, they cannot think, they can only emote through the use of specific tropes that have been so defined to function, often successfully, as ideological weapons.

Would you say that what you say in many words in your text above is value-neutral, authoritative, and/or objective? For example, is all debate a "policing" done by a side that is no more 'right' than any other? If so, is this to say that disagreement is the preferred, desired, more 'natural' or better (or whatever) state of affairs for the world and its inhabitants? And if so, might this represent a kind of approach to thought not unlike the present approach to culture that we call 'multi-culturalism'?

[EDIT] Note: when I say "no more 'right' than any other", I'm trying to capture a sense of there not being one or more ideas that are overall better than the next better idea 'below' it. Clearly, some ideas seem extraordinarily bad, and some good, at least to me. Or are there no ideas that potentially outweigh others overall?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Would you say that what you say in many words in your text above is value-neutral, authoritative, and/or objective?

I suppose I might claim at least some *authority* if that comes from doing a great deal of reading on all sides of the ideological landscape. And that I believe that I can approach a “balanced outlook” and at least understand where Progressive activists are coming from and where there values are located, while similarly seeing that side, say, of the French chauvinism of Renaud Camus that you once rejected absolutely, as having validity.

It is likely that my own stance is similar to that of Alain de Benoist. He is not easily categorized. He is therefore more threatening to hardened, polarized positions.

Here’s a good one:

Decadence in modern mass multicultural societies begins at a moment when there is not longer any discernible meaning within society. Meaning is destroyed by raising individualism above all other values because rampant individualism encourages the anarchical proliferation of egotism at the expense of the values that were once part of the national heritage, values that give form to the concept of nationhood and the nation state, to a state which is more than just a political entity, and which corresponds to a particular people who are conscious of sharing a common heritage for the survival of which they are prepared to make personal sacrifices. Man evolved in cooperating groups united by common cultural and genetic ties, and it is only in such a setting that the individual can feel truly free, and truly protected. Men cannot live happily alone and without values or any sense of identity: such a situation leads to nihilism, drug abuse, criminality, and worse. With the spread of purely egotistic goals at the expense of the altruistic regard for family and nation, the individual begins to talk of his rights rather than his duties, for he no longer feels any sense of destiny, of belonging to and being a part of a greater and more enduring entity. He no longer rejoices in the secure belief that he shares in a heritage which it is part of his common duty to protect - he no longer feels that he has anything in common with those around him. In short, he feels lonely and oppressed. Since all values have become personal, everything is now equal to everything; e.g., nothing equals nothing.

Since I appear to deal in counter-cultural ideas and to put them out to be examined, I am engaging in a “dissident” activity, no? How could that be precisely neutral? Where is the neutral center? In contrast to Flash, Sculptor and Iambiguous what I do is immediately sniffed-out as evilness. But in this they react Pavlovianly.

I always think of The Dancing Chicken.

My eloquent and “filigreed” discourse has strong notes of objectivity — in comparison to other common stances. Yet that objectively is hardly welcomed or appreciated.

::: snif snif :::

Please: Be careful looking too squarely at The Dancing Chicken:

Werner Herzog’s dancing chicken, appearing at the end of his film Stroszek (1977), is probably more infamously known as one of the final, haunting images that Joy Division’s Ian Curtis saw before he committed suicide in 1980. While its appearance is satirical and almost comedic (especially when viewed out of its context), it has darker undertones, acting as a symbol for the bleak nature of our existence. Furthermore, its appearance is a testament to the futility of Bruno S’s impossible quest through America and the harsh realities of his American dream. At the end of the day, we are simply spectacles dancing for money, and our everyday life is reduced to a mindless performance.

Herzog wrote Stroszek for the street performer Bruno S, whom he also starred in his film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. After being released from prison, Bruno S’s character Bruno Stroszek, he meets up with his prostitute girlfriend and is beaten up by her pimps. Wanting a better life, Stroszek emigrates to America in the film with delusions of grandeur and the ideal promises of the American Dream. What he finds, however, is his ruination after a series of mishaps. Despite the promises and hopes that America offers, he ends up losing his girlfriend, and returns to his criminal lifestyle. America is no different than the Berlin lifestyle he left behind; he is still humiliated, abused, and living in a society that is materialistically driven and opportunistic. Bruno has his hopes and dreams, but they are unattainable and unrealistic goals. His experiences with reality metaphorically destroy everything he holds onto, and he is ultimately left with nothing.

[As you surely guess I go into this in far more detail in the 18th and 19th chapters of the Email Course. Heavy shit, man!]

[iambiguous]

Think slavery and Jin Crow and documentaries of this sort -- https://www.pbs.org/video/redlining-map ... ld-kam44p/ ; all the way out to apartheid and Nazi Germany. Either de jure the white race prevails and accumulates the best of everything or de facto it does. It just depends on how far the white authorities take it. And certainly in almost all cases this was rationalized because the white race was deemed to be the superior race. And thus deserved to be on top.

In other words, racism that was predicated less on "might makes right" and more on "right makes might". Think Nietzsche's Übermensch...but only pertaining to white Anglo-Saxon men.

Link it to anything you want. The crucial point for some is that genetically the white race must prevail over all the other races because, again, genetically the white race deserves to. Trump just happened to have a "more intelligent" daddy who could pass a ton of money and power down to him.

As for Trump Sr. and racism, well, maybe the Donald inherited that from him as well...

https://youtu.be/Ha13dO7mzTw
https://www.google.com/search?q=was+don ... s-wiz-serp

Still, the crucial point for many racists is that mastery [or whatever else you want to call it] is derived first and foremost from the reality of "biological imperatives". Racism is just...natural.

No, I don't buy that argument for a minute...It wasn't just evil whitey honkeys who practiced in slave-ownership, slave-trade, and superiority complexes. Germans (German =/= Anglo) practiced racial superiority. Japanese practiced racial superiority. Turks practiced racial superiority. Lots of cultures/peoples/civilizations see themselves as the world best. So your window is too small to understand the greater point.

When did I suggest that only white folks could be racists? You asked "what does 'mastery' mean to you?". I told you. What I'm curious about in regard to those like you and AJ revolves more around this...

...[if you do believe that "on average" white folks are intellectually superior to other races], okay, if you were in a position of power in a community composed of many different races, what would be permitted and what would not be permitted in regard to social, political and economic interactions? What behaviors would be encouraged/rewarded and what behaviors would be discouraged/punished? For example, would interracial marriages still be legal?

And how would you compare yourself to, say, those who practiced apartheid in South Africa and those who practiced extermination in Nazi Germany?

Or, as with AJ, are you more the "observer" type, not really much interested in "walking the talk" politically down out of the intellectual -- philosophical -- clouds.

[Wizard22]

When such a small (yet vital) piece of "evidence"

Imagine being so deluded and detached from reality that you honestly believe black-on-white violence is uncommon or rare...
Yikes!

Good little Sculpty, you just live out the rest of your short, pathetic life, in your liberal echo-chamber.
Keep pretending to be interested in philosophy and reality.

[Wizard22]

One thing I find interesting here is the reference to the Civil War which, among the Southerners, is described as a *war of Northern aggression*. So what has interested me is what some historians say about the Civil War as the *defining* social, cultural and political struggle. What this means is that our modern political struggles tend to prove themselves as being *octaves* of or reflections of the former defining struggles. These come up time and again and follow a basic pattern. The North invaded and occupied the South and in this sense imposed its will on a section of the nation. What section was that? Essentially original America. So at least in a sense the *War of Northern Aggression* was a war against the original identity of America. The *Northern attitude* can then potentially be described as extremely intolerant. It condemns the views and ideas of its chosen enemies as being allied with *evil* and *wrongness*. This attitude then becomes a sort of constellation in the personality.

I fully agree that philosophical and historical analysis, always from a distance, is a more sensible intellectual position than that of the activist-partisan. However, within the general intellectual culture of today one must recognize that to be *right with God* one must adopt and confess very specific views that we describe as "politically correct". These view are enforced through the use of moral-emotional tools. If you have views and ideas that deviate from the standardized politically correct, those among our modern *thought-police* sniff these out, and immediately they assign labels: racist, sexist, misogynist, but these all flow, inevitably, into the ur-descriptive term of Nazi or Fascist.

The function of these terms is not hard to discern especially, and for example, on a forum like this one. Their function is to stop and inhibit any expression or exchange of ideas that are felt to be non-politically correct. Hence the term crimethink and wrongthink -- and a reference to a cadre of thought-police who are expert *sniffers* and who are aligned with goodness -- is not so far-fetched.

In my own view, and here I comment on an aspect of what you write ["thus the "European" mentality is socialistic in the sense of being committed to one's Ethnic society. Americans are not so"] my own view is that the former nationalistic glue that the conquering Northern power did successfully establish as 'Americanism" is now coming undone. The socially binding glue, or the ideological glue, that which holds a people together through different levels of *identification*, no longer holds. One has to look at and understand then all that tends to act as an *acid* and a dissolving agent.

A complex undertaking indeed.

I agree.
My interpretation of US politics right now is that Joe Biden represents the dying Democrat-Liberal-Left cultural representation: elderly near death, decaying, decrepit, severely demented, and these stooges pretend to support and adulate him, because of what the Democrat party has come to represent, despite its history. This is how, just a couple posts ago, a moron like Sculptor uses KKK to slander his superiors, without realizing KKK were Democrats, and Robert Byrd was the peer to Joseph Biden. So here is the hypocrisy of the Liberal-Left...their 'racism' is allowed, promoted, encouraged...but if a black American has conservative or traditional values, supports Republicanism, then he is a "(black)-white supremacist". As opposed to...a white-black supremacist??? But these people are demented in general, barely can be reasoned with if at all.

As you say, the American 'glue' is coming apart, hence the Federated State power accelerates and become totalitarian, fascist, and cruel in its executive orders. The world watches as the Western political battle unfolds. Trump represents these trends, and his supposed 'insurrection'.

Similarly, or relatedly, if a natural sense of *identification* and social and cultural solidarity of a national sort begins to come undone, it does seem to produce the need for the State to intervene and, more or less, enforce unity. How does this come about? Through the intervention of a State-police apparatus. Unity must be maintained, even if it is a false-unity and is no longer actually felt, through forced and even military intervention. I refer to military in the widest sense: federal police, intelligence agencies, corporate boards, PR and propaganda -- all must work together to stop the *glue* from unbinding. Curiously then, the 'glue of enforcement', at least seen from one angle, is a sort of applied Marxianism, and the present régime takes up those banners.

And this is why we are all witnessing a neck-breaking acceleration and intensification in the use of rhetorical terms to describe the actions of an intervening Federal state apparatus into the political affairs of the nation. The language of the Republican Right is now mirroring, almost verbatim, the sort of rhetorical terms used just a few decades back by the political Left! The State apparatus is now turned against the former *Republican-Conservative* block when, again just a short time back, it was the Republican-Conservative block that was said to have control of the State. Now it is the hard-core Republican, with his outmoded identifications, who is being hounded by a neo-moralist thought-police, but it has also been extended to actual police actions.

But what amazes me, and here I refer to this forum which, in my opinion, is peopled predominantly by extreme ideologues and anti-intellectuals, is the degree that the real outlines of political warfare are simply not seen. They are not registered at all. The idiots who come to do battle do not even have the proper tools for that battle. They simply do not understand what is going on and they don't want to.

They're simply lower intelligence. They don't have the faculties or capacity to understand "the big picture". I try not to fault them for their lesser heredity, but it is challenging and tests your patience.

So then the interesting thing is to apply these labels to, say, Flash, Sculptor and also to a degree to Veggie. They won't think, they cannot think, they can only emote through the use of specific tropes that have been so defined to function, often successfully, as ideological weapons.

Active participants in philosophy forums tend to be above-average of the general population, slightly. So they do have some pattern-recognition, albeit not much, and some ability to understand and accept contradictions and hypocrisy. I'd say their greatest problem is simply no loyalty to Philosophy properly. In other words, they're not really here to learn, inquire, explore reality, but rather to reinforce and bolster their personal values and general political convictions.

This makes them predictable, and exploitable.

[Wizard22]

When did I suggest that only white folks could be racists? You asked "what does 'mastery' mean to you?". I told you. What I'm curious about in regard to those like you and AJ revolves more around this...

...[if you do believe that "on average" white folks are intellectually superior to other races], okay, if you were in a position of power in a community composed of many different races, what would be permitted and what would not be permitted in regard to social, political and economic interactions? What behaviors would be encouraged/rewarded and what behaviors would be discouraged/punished? For example, would interracial marriages still be legal?

And how would you compare yourself to, say, those who practiced apartheid in South Africa and those who practiced extermination in Nazi Germany?

Or, as with AJ, are you more the "observer" type, not really much interested in "walking the talk" politically down out of the intellectual -- philosophical -- clouds.

Because the first values and explanations you offered with regard to 'Mastery' were that of Southern White slave-owners, which is a trope. As mentioned, you completely ignored the rest of the world, and the rest of human history. So your mind is fixated on one small section, of what it means to be 'Master' opposed to 'Slave'.

I believe in Participation, not so much Observation. I'm more "Roman" than Greek, you could say. It's not enough to be aware of life, reality, the universe...I believe that everybody has a moral duty to "give back" and participate in society and life. My particular problem, however, is that I don't necessarily know what is right or true or existent. Hence why I use Philosophy to guide me to Truth. I recognize everybody's beliefs, regardless of those who are right or wrong.

[Sculptor]

When such a small (yet vital) piece of "evidence"

Imagine being so deluded and detached from reality that you honestly believe black-on-white violence is uncommon or rare...
Yikes!

Good little Sculpty, you just live out the rest of your short, pathetic life, in your liberal echo-chamber.
Keep pretending to be interested in philosophy and reality.

You are just a fucking idiot.
One random tic tok is meaningless.
You are meaningless.

SO fuck off back to your fantasy cosplay world you brain dead pig fucker.

image_2023-07-23_102349400.png

[Wizard22]

You are just a fucking idiot.
One random tic tok is meaningless.
You are meaningless.

SO fuck off back to your fantasy cosplay world you brain dead pig fucker.

image_2023-07-23_102349400.png

Oh no, the Democrat is mad!

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You are just a fucking idiot.
One random tic tok is meaningless.
You are meaningless.

SO fuck off back to your fantasy cosplay world you brain dead pig fucker.

image_2023-07-23_102349400.png

Oh no, the Democrat is mad!

He's never seen a black person in real life so be gentle with him...

[Wizard22]

He's never seen a black person in real life so be gentle with him...

I can tell!

[Gary Childress]

Would you say that what you say in many words in your text above is value-neutral, authoritative, and/or objective?

I suppose I might claim at least some *authority* if that comes from doing a great deal of reading on all sides of the ideological landscape. And that I believe that I can approach a “balanced outlook” and at least understand where Progressive activists are coming from and where there values are located, while similarly seeing that side, say, of the French chauvinism of Renaud Camus that you once rejected absolutely, as having validity.

It is likely that my own stance is similar to that of Alain de Benoist. He is not easily categorized. He is therefore more threatening to hardened, polarized positions.

Well, I suppose I tend to "at least" understand where so-called 'conservative' activists come from. I've listened relatively more charitably to some of their arguments than some have, just as I have listened to yours.

In many ways, I see you as possessing what might, in ways, be called 'excellence'. In many ways, you appear well-versed and well-read. You appear to have practiced behavior (scholarly diligence) that ought to mean something in this world or ought to amount to something special. I have been far less rigorous in my 'academic studies'. Of course, we both get frustrated with others. You get frustrated with those you get frustrated with and call them "idiots and morons" and I get frustrated with people who worship God and call them "idiots and morons". It's a bad habit but it seems to be very difficult for me to abstain from it.

I am wretched. If there were only room for one person left on a lifeboat, it seems obvious to me that I probably deserve it least of just about anyone in this world. Do I yearn for that seat? Yes. I'm terrified of death, especially if it would be agonizing. When my time comes, I hope I am able to make the right choice. But for me, the "right" choice is ALWAYS self-destructive. That is not true for everyone in the world. To be brutally honest I am probably one of the least worthy to survive and I know it.

I would like to say that at least I ought to deserve life more than a serial killer does (or a world leader responsible for war and strife), but I don't think it really matters all that much. I don't think God cares a whit about me. If a serial killer suddenly converted and became a devout follower of Christ, then God should probably usher him into heaven while I sit in hell.

As far as I can tell, ultimate happiness would be having my own harem of swimsuit models. But this world is not about ultimate happiness as far as I can tell. It's about degeneration after birth. (Well, to be honest, and accurate, there's some growth for an extended period after birth, for whatever that amounts to.)

[Alexis Jacobi]

How weird that for you it always turns back to a focus in an acute subjectivity. Must you always make yourself the object of a pathetic fascination?

Note that I opted to speak to you in the first-person in my last post. Now I will revert to the third-person. I have no desire to give energy to your perversions.

Find a therapeutic community where there are people to help you through. I do not see this forum as the proper place to get therapy.

[Gary Childress]

How weird that for you it always turns back to a focus in an acute subjectivity. Must you always make yourself the object of a pathetic fascination?

Note that I opted to speak to you in the first-person in my last post. Now I will revert to the third-person. I have no desire to give energy to your perversions.

Find a therapeutic community where there are people to help you through. I do not see this forum as the proper place to get therapy.

Feel free to send me a postcard laced with Anthrax if it will make you happier. Though, I suppose expressing your pithy distaste suffices also. There really appears to be no way whatsoever that the two of us can relate. It's strange how I seem to insult you while conceding existential victory to you. Perhaps like a pesky insect my non-existence would please you the most (assuming I even matter enough to you to pay for my extermination)?

[Wizard22]

Has anybody ever told you that you have a bad attitude, Gary?

[Gary Childress]

Has anybody ever told you that you have a bad attitude, Gary?

Yes.